Finding Kalpana

One day we have to let them go and trust and pray they will be safe and secure and succeed in their own educational journey. Kalpana’s sojourn is same for every teenager who leaves home for college.

Our family loves the popular movie Finding Nemo. But while others appreciate its vivid animation and clever script, we feel the story is really about us. Marlin the father fish is very much my husband: organized, wary, and protective. Dory, the mother substitute, is like me: accepting of everyone, wellmeaning, and highly forgetful. Nemo is the equivalent of our daughter Kalpana: optimistic, thoughtful, eager to be independent and out in the world, but concerned about her parents’ well-being.

Like Nemo, we too were living in a paradise – in the small sea-side town of Cascais in Portugal. Our barracuda was cancer; it snatched Kalpana’s little brother away when he was three and she was seven. Thereafter, like the singleton Nemo, Kalpana found an assortment of friends along the way. Beginning with her constant cousin Kiran and joined by a myriad of transient international kids, Kalpana finished high school with a diverse and tight-knit gang of pseudo-siblings.

And now Kalpana is beginning her solo journey. Having spent most of her school years in India, she’s off now for college in the US at Barnard College, Columbia University.

While her grandfather went abroad for his doctorate degree and her father went abroad for his master’s, Kalpana is going away for her undergraduate. Today, earlier and larger migration for higher education is common. The number of foreign students has doubled since even 2000. Some 265,000 go to Canada, over 200,000 to Australia, and more than 420,000 to the UK. While the American empire may be in decline, its universities still hold a great allure for the youth of the world for their academic leadership, freedom to explore and create and share, and their inviting and equitable atmosphere. During the 2012-2013 academic year, over 800,000 foreign students studied at more than 4,500 degree-granting US institutions. While slower economic conditions in western countries may be compelling their students to live at home and study, a growing middle class in crowded and highly-competitive developing countries – like China, India, and South Korea – is looking West for interesting, better, and simply more educational opportunities.

There have been reports in the Indian press about Indian students failing to make it into good Indian colleges but getting admission into American Ivy League institutions. American universities too are casting their nets globally. Their admissions officers now regularly visit leading Indian high schools and their public information sessions are often packed to beyond capacity. It’s worth their effort: while many local students get some form of financial support, foreign students (particularly undergrads) usually pay full fees.

The growing affluence in Asian countries makes this process financially possible while the global spread of American culture makes it socially easier. Although studies analyze the cultural adjustments and mental stress experienced by foreign students, the three vehicles of travel, internet, and Hollywood have exposed many to American culture and language long before they reach its shores. Also, with the large immigrant population in the US, many foreign students now have family and friends already settled in the US and therefore a ready source of social support. Consequently, Asian cultures are prevalent on the ground in America. For example, even small towns in North America have at least one Indian restaurant and its college, an Indian Students Association, and its Indian community, often a temple.

And although Asians are literally transplanted to the other side of the world, with the advance of telecommunications, the world is made significantly smaller. International students can retain an inexpensive and extensive daily link with home via email, Facebook, Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, and a myriad of other programs. While this may help alleviate foreign students’ initial homesickness, as they become more deeply involved with their college lives it’s more a boon to their parents far away to maintain contact and assure themselves of their child’s well-being. Nemo and Marlin could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they had only had cell phones.

But while technology will enable us to stay in touch easier, we’ll still need to learn to live without each other – physically and emotionally. And that may well be the biggest education for both child and parents in the years ahead. It’s different from American children leaving home to go upstate or even to a different state to study. International students are from a different country and often from a different continent and hemisphere too. They can’t drive or even fly home for the weekend to do laundry, stock up on home cooking, or be nursed through a flu. They may not be able to go home for Thanksgiving or even Christmas. Also, many will not know anyone at the institution they are going to.

Kalpana will be the only student from her old high school at her new university. She will need to be organized without parental nagging and assess risk, realizing there is no parental safety net. And on our part, we’ll need to shift the focus of our last 18 years of existence and find new ventures to absorb our passion. Having long instilled in Kalpana the feeling that the world is her playground and her responsibility, it would be unfair on us now to impose geographic restrictions on her just to suit our aching hearts. Her hopes, interests, and concerns transcend national boundaries.

Once their studies are over, some international students return home to apply their knowledge. But for others, this is the first step to a new life in a new home. And for some, the US may be a stepping stone on a path that leads them to still other places.

There’s that old mushy quote “If you love something set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” Well, Kalpana may not come back. But in some sense, she will always be ours and we, hers. And in spite of my daily forgetfulness, the times we shared over the past 18 years are unforgettable.

Although Kalpana now stands five inches taller than me, I still remember bringing the 6 pound 5 ounce baby home from the hospital in a car seat that was too big for her, the colic, her learning to walk and finally sleep through the night, the slow eating to endless playing of the Lion King audio tape, laughing and dancing and singing around the house, reading Franklin the Turtle books at bedtime, our worries about the scars of her brother’s death, and her efforts to make us smile again.

I remember her growing: from initially moving away from our touch to later initiating hugs herself; from being scared of other children to being surrounded by a gaggle of friends; from being shy to talking calmly in front of 400 students and teachers at last year’s school assembly.

Like her, each of the foreign students coming long distances to study has a family, has fought demons, has faced failures, has celebrated victories, and in essence has a past. They are not the islands that their new universities will see. The upside of this is that these students have a chance to make a new beginning. Their tabula is truly rasa. Unfettered by family, expectations, traditions, and the past, they can make of themselves what they will. This is a truly exciting time in their lives.

Nemo in Latin means ‘no one’. The optimist in me likes to think that conversely that name includes everyone and therefore his journey is one we can all empathize with. Kalpana in Sanskrit means ‘imagination’. I like to think that armed with that, she will manage her way in the wider world. And if she does meet any predators along the way, I hope they will be in rehab – like Bruce the shark: fish-friendly or at least trying to be good.

Finding Nemo may take place under the ocean but it’s actually a road movie. And while the plot may seem to be the journey of father Marlin searching for and finding his son Nemo, in essence it’s the journey of Nemo finding himself.

Although there are now many foreign students, each will still have an individual journey. Their experiences and results will be their own. As in Nemo’s ocean, there may be set currents but no set paths.

Kalpana will go to places we have never been. She will meet people we do not know. She will have adventures we will not be aware of – unless she wants to share them with us. I hope all she’s learned so far will serve her well. And if she’s ever feeling low, I hope she’ll remember how much she is loved.

We found Kalpana 18 years ago. And she has been a treasure in our lives. Now – as we stand back, watch her swimming away from us and our sheltered coral reef and alone towards the unknown – it’s time for her to find herself.

Ranjani Iyer Mohanty is a writer and editor, based in New Delhi. Her articles have appeared in several newspapers and magazines, including the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Atlantic.